Our human rights come out of human dignity. They're made in the image and likeness of God. That's where the dignity of the human person comes from.
We all have a right to have a decent livelihood, but at the same time we have a responsibility to contribute to society, to the common good. The basic human rights in Catholic social teaching are most succinctly expressed in the papal encyclical, Potcham and Terrace. And there, the foundation is the basic right to life that cannot be taken away. We require life in order to have all of our other rights and in order to fulfill all our other responsibilities. We are required to have more than existence.
Jesus promises us the abundant life. that basic right are all the super basic things that each of us need like food and water and shelter and clothing. Health care is another area where people have rights to medical procedures.
and medicine and the care of a doctor. On top of the foundation of those sort of basic rights for survival, there are more sophisticated rights, like the right to participate in society. A right to have a search for God and freedom of religion, to search for truth and to live in integrity with that, respected. For us, rights and responsibilities are reciprocal.
We always have a responsibility to others, to the common people. common good and to see our work and resources as something that need to be used to build up society and to be shared with those who are in need. That need is a call. It calls something out from us. What do we encounter in the communities where we are?
Our kids'school, our neighborhood, our parish? And then in a larger sense, what are the needs in our region. Human beings are wonderful creatures that have rights but also that have agency and responsibility to help to shape their own destiny and the destinies of others in ways that reflect this basic dignity that God has given us. So advocacy is a really important way for us as Catholics to participate in the ordering of society.
It's a way for us to ask the government to structure laws, procedures, and laws that are in place. procedures, policies, in such a way that people are better able to obtain their human rights and exercise their responsibilities. We are born with others given to us to look after us, but then with our responsibility to look after us.
others. It's huge. We are really supposed to think when we meet others and they're supposed to think when they meet us.
Here is another person in God's image. Here is a person just like me.